Feliciano likely to begin season on DL; Romulo move in the works

Via Chad Jennings, lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano is almost certain to start the season on the disabled list because of his triceps issue. He was scheduled to throw today, but the session had to be canceled because his arm just wasn’t up to it. It seems likely that Feliciano’s temporary replacement will be fellow lefty Steve Garrison, who’s already on the 40-man roster. I wrote about him earlier this month, and he has the requisite breaking ball (curveball and an occasional slider) to get out same-sided hitters.

Meanwhile, Joe Girardi indicated that something is in the works with right-hander Romulo Sanchez, who is out-of-options and was a long shot to make the team. It could very well be a trade, but the return is likely to be small.

Is two years ready “long term”? I have no problem with a two year deal for a guy with his durability track record. If it blows up so be it, but two years at a salary that is so low relative to over all payroll is not some big deal to get one all worked up over. In fact its crazy nit picking imo

http://danielslifka.wordpress.com Jerome S.

I kinda agree with this. But I guess it makes sense for only rich clubs. Like if you saw the Rays hand a reliever a multi-year deal… no, no.

ROBTEN

Of course, it could just as easily be spun the other way.

You could argue that given his early injury history, the sheer number of appearances made over the past three seasons combined with his relative age over the course of the deal (age 34-36 seasons), means that the possibility of injury should be even more of a concern with a multi-year deal (especially when you add in the relative ups and downs of most relievers from year to year).

Griffey’s Grotesquely Swollen Jaw

I guess my point is really signing free agent relievers is a bad proposition at all. I mean, few have worked out and most of our quality relievers in the recent past have been from our farm system (Mo, Joba, Robertson), while the big FA relievers (Farnsworth, Marte, Karsay) have all stunk or been injured or both. it’s better to build a bullpen from within IMO.

kurt

cmon even if marte sucked he stepped up in the 09 playoffs i believe earning the nickname dominant marte, no?

Ted Nelson

It’s great to build a bullpen from within when you have the arms, but the Yankees didn’t/don’t have any LOOGY options knocking on the door. The left side of their bullpen was relying 100% on Boone Logan and AAAA guys until/if Marte returns. The guys you list–Mo, Joba, and Robertson–didn’t just come out of nowhere to become stud relievers… they were prospects coming up through the system. Mo and Joba, in fact, were starting prospects. D-Rob was a fast moving college reliever.

Your sample size is extremely small and not even representative. You’re only looking at one team’s experience… there are 30 teams. You’re overlooking guys the Yankees acquired from outside the org. who did work out to one extent or another like John Wettland, Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, Greame Lloyd, Chris Hammond, Tom Gordon, Kerry Wood, .. heck, even overlooking the effective seasons Karsay and Farnsworth did have for the Yankees and holding them to almost impossible standards given their careers before coming to NY. As well as overlooking all the relief prospects the Yankees had who stunk, blew up, or never amounted to anything.

Don’t get me wrong… I do value the flexibility and efficiency of building a bullpen in-house. However, I don’t think it’s a simple 100% in-house or 100% acquisitions situation. If you don’t have good in-house options… you sort of have to go out-of-house to get performance. In most cases you’re going to have to use both approaches. The Yankees just have the resources to take bigger swings on free agents and trade acquisitions.

Marte, by the way, was acquired in a trade.

CMP

I’m shocked that a Cashmanite like you would express some veiled criticism of a move your boy made.

Steve (different one)

I don’t really disagree with the overriding premise, but the fact that Feliciano is going on the DL does absolutely nothing to prove it.

If Feliciano was signed to a one year deal, he’d still be on the DL. If Feliciano misses 2 weeks in 2011 and never again, it won’t reflect poorly on the contract.

Cy Pettitte

who takes Pedro’s spot now for the start of the season? Ayala? Prior?

Cy Pettitte

/didn’t read the whole article

I am dumb

Urban

…his arm doesn’t feel good?

Anything more specific on the severity? This feels uncomfortably like one of those vague injuries that goes on for months, ending in surgery! Hope I’m wrong.

http://www.twitter.com/deanezag Zack

Overreaction much?

Urban

I don’t know.

http://danielslifka.wordpress.com Jerome S.

Remember the Marte!

ROBTEN

Well, “doesn’t feel good” injuries could be more of a problem because if a clear diagnosis is not possible there could be an underlying issue that remains untreated for an extended period of time, as in one of those injuries that someone tries to play through until it something happens to make it more serious.

Or, it could just mean his arm doesn’t feel well.

Or, it could mean that he’s lost his sense of touch in that arm.

/I’m not a doctor, but I play one on the interwebs.

http://www.google.com/ Irish

What a joy to find such clear tkhniing. Thanks for posting!

http://twitter.com/urbainshockcor Urban

Apparently not.

Kevin

Id rather have luis ayala in the pen as his replacement. Booney can handle the LOOGY duties well enough on his own.

http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

They’d have to open up another 40-man roster spot for Ayala, which aren’t exactly plentiful at the moment. They have one open now, but still need to open spots for Garcia, Colon, the backup catcher (whoever it is), and Eric Chavez.

Bpdelia

No garrison is the right move. Two lefties is a nice luxury to have and since he is on the roster already and relatively stretched out it makes sense. He can be a loogy as well as a backup blowout mop up man. Plus may as well see what he has in the very lowest leverage role possible, that of backup loogy/mopup man.

Cuso

“Booney?!?”

c’mon, Joe G.

zs190

Cash’s actually done quite well with these small trades. If I recall correctly, we got Romulo for Eric Hacker, Dickerson for Mitre, and Scottie Allen for Juan Miranda. We basically traded our AAAA guys for other people’s spare parts, but often with higher upsides, so I’m hopeful that we get somebody like a Scottie Allen again for Romulo, in otherwords a lower level guy with some upside.

http://danielslifka.wordpress.com Jerome S.

Romulo for Hosmer.

Get it done.

Cy Pettitte

Maybe the Twins will give Cash something decent for Romulo

The Big City of Dreams

Mauer?

Steve in PDX

He should settle for nothing less than Mauer+Liriano. And some salary relief.

mj

Hey mike any idea who is trying to get Romulo?

http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

Nope.

Simon

Im watching the Braves/Phils game now on MLB Network but just to throw it out there, Kenshin Kawakami? I know the Braves wanted to get rid of him and maybe Cash is eyeing him, but who knows.

RubaDoob

why not get scott diamond from the twins??

AJ

A lot of injuries this Spring. Or maybe it’s just baseball.

Rey22

Millwood to the rotation and CC can be out second LOOGY.

Problem solved.

fire levine

Agreed. His stuff plays better in the pen

Tommy

I know that this is not the place to post this so I apologize in advance. But it appears that two teams have recently dropped out of the RAB Conference American league and the draft is at 6:30 this evening. So, if anybody would like to sign up for those final two spots the information is as follows.

League ID: 62821
Password: riveraveblues

theyankeewarrior

We sign a reliever for two years and he can’t even last two weeks…

Between Damaso, Igawa and Pedro, we currently have 12M in useless lefties in our organization.

Is being a LOOGY so tough?

http://twitter.com/steveh_mandaura Steve H

How exactly is Feliciano useless?

theyankeewarrior

Right now he is useless because he can not play.

Obviously, we hope that he will not be useless in the future.

But yes, as of today, and as of opening day, he is very useless.

http://twitter.com/steveh_mandaura Steve H

So CC is useless too. He’s only available 20% of the time. Worthless.

theyankeewarrior

What? CC Sabathia is not useless because he’s our ace. He’s not on the DL. He’s not injured. He will pitch more innings than anyone on the team.

As of right now, Pedro Feliciano is a guy with a bum arm. He is useless to Joe Girardi.

He is not eligible to play in a game. He is useless. When he becomes eligible at some point in the future, we will then become useful.

But like I said before, he is, in fact, useless to this team right now.

“Pedro Feliciano is almost certainly going to open on the disabled list. He was supposed to throw today but his arm didn’t feel good, so the session was canceled.”

Players who are on the DL are essentially worthless during the time they are on the DL.

They can not be used.

That’s all I said. It’s not a groundbreaking thought. I wasn’t trying to spark an argument, but I stand by my statement that Feleciano is worthless to the Yankees while he’s on the DL.

Especially while he’s being paid 4M annually.

ROBTEN

I agree that there is a difference between a player on the DL and a player that is available to provide either direct or indirect value to the team even if they don’t play every day.

Perhaps “valueless” might be a more useful term. During the period when a player is unavailable due to being on the DL, they cannot provide win-value to the team either directly by playing or indirectly by being traded (without special permission from the commissioner). Whereas, a player not on the DL could provide value either directly or indirectly.

It doesn’t seem that controversial to me to suggest this, but perhaps there’s something I’m missing?

theyankeewarrior

Thank you, ROBTEN, for reading what I said and responding to it in a mature manor.

The part you’re missing, the same part that (I assume) got me a !!DOUBLE FACE PALM!!!, is that it’s just one simple injury and that Pedro will probably be back sometime in April.

But that was not part of my statement. All I did was make a simple statement, arguing that currently, we have three players in our organization that have these things in common:

1) They are left handed pitchers
2) They make 4 million dollars per season
3) They will all NOT contribute at all to the team to begin the season… aka they are “useless” or “valueless” to Joe Girardi starting March 31st.

Their names are Igawa, Marte and Feleciano.

That’s it. a plain and simple fact.

Cuso

I understand what you were saying in your original post as well as this one. I think the backlash from your original post may have something to do with the distinction you made in the last post that you did not in the first.

That being the ‘as of March 31st distinction.’

theyankeewarrior

Yeah, I thought that the word “currently” did the trick.

Lets just start the season so we can have real games to rant about instead of splitting hairs about banged-up LOOGY’s.

It’s controversial in that “theyankeewarrior” ignores the potentially short-term nature of Feliciano’s DL stint. “theyankeewarrior” groups Feliciano with someone on the DL long-term and someone who can’t get AAA hitters out and calls them all worthless.

Like CC, Pedro Feliciano was not going to pitch every day. If CC misses a start or two over the course of the season, people are not going to start commenting on how he’s useless. Sure, players on the DL don’t add value to the team during their time on the DL (unless maybe their absence results in someone else getting a call up and proving themselves or something…). That doesn’t mean we go around calling them all worthless. If Feliciano makes 60 appearances on the season, no one will remember that he started April on the DL.

Also, “theyankeewarrior” brings up his salary… Salary has nothing to do with going on the DL. $20 mill players get hurt just like league minimum guys get hurt. Injuries are a part of the game.